Friday, May 6, 2016

Ugly, Fat, Short, Jewish. tablet. israeli magazine

''But anti-Semitism isn’t like ageism or fatism or other irrational prejudices. Those other prejudices rely almost entirely on theories of inferiority: fat people are undisciplined, short people lack authority, black people are stupid and criminal, Muslims are seditious and violent, LGBTQ people are perverts, etc. Jews, by contrast, are loathed without being considered repulsive. While some still find ussmelly, anti-Semitism today is often based on theories of superiority: Jews are uniquely smart, good with money, ambitious. And we are thought to be clannish and cunning, two traits admired within one’s group but loathed in outsiders.''

''Many stereotypes of Jews—that we are good with money, for example—may redound to a job applicant’s advantage. So long as our mysterious powers can be properly harnessed, one might very well want a Jew in one’s employ. I knew somebody who would only hire Jewish lawyers because she thought they were aggressive; I knew somebody else who would only go to Jewish doctors, because she thought they were smart.''

''The writer Amy Fine Collins tells the story of her friend Andrew Solomon’s asking a Russian peasant in Zagorsk “why, in his estimation, there was such antipathy everywhere against Jews. Without a moment’s hesitation, the peasant answered, in Russian: ‘It is because the Jews have a secret vegetable they eat so they don’t become alcoholics like the rest of us. And they refuse to share that vegetable with anyone else''

Of course, that kind of deep stupidity doesn’t characterize the anti-Semitism of the English upper classes and university students, who seem to be the chief constituency today. But it’s similar in its focus on Jews’ special, secret powers. Finkelstein is right that that kind of prejudice is unlikely to harm a Jew in the contemporary job market. But it’s potentially lethal nonetheless. When the mob comes—and as Donald Trump reminds us, the mob can always come again—it comes for the Jews. Not because we’re physically repulsive or smelly (you know, like fat people), but because, as the anti-Semites believe, we’re shifty, cunning, and powerful. That’s the kind of prejudice that’s easy to ignore, right up until the moment that it’s not.


No comments:

Post a Comment